You're My Rugged Heart
by De Fideli
Summary: Five moments of reassurance from him, and one from her.


**Author's note: **This is based off of a prompt from the sweetest girl Jodie (makemeakiwi on tumbr), and it was "Be still, my soul, be still." from A.E. Housman. Suggested listening is Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips. If you have any prompts for me, feel free to drop them in my tumblr (enjolrastic) inbox!

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**One. You're my backbone, you're my cornerstone,**

It's too much. Perhaps it's the fact that the leather couches in the reception area are worth more than her entire furniture collection. Maybe it's because the entire room is made of perfectly tailored professional attire, and she's sure her attempt at hemming the bottom of her skirt doesn't put her in the category.

It doesn't matter that in her tiny, cheap apartment, inside a cheap frame is a new diploma with her alma mater's prestigious name in elegant calligraphy. It doesn't matter that her kitchen counter is littered with sheets of practice interview questions. Because she is sure as hell not going to get a job in a room full of qualified, confident candidates.

She picks up her bag from beside her and silently excuses herself to the bathroom, with no intentions of coming back to a room she clearly has no place in.

On her way out of the elevator, her thoughts begin to motor her steps into a rushed pace. Consequentially, she collides into one of the suit-clad men, the hot cup of coffee in his hand spilling onto her interview attire. If the gods above hinted that she didn't belong there, they followed it up with the most obvious marquee.

"Good god," the man looks up, a few years her senior. "Can I pay for your clothing? Where do you work?"

She lets out a humorless laugh. "It's worth pocket change," she admits, not even the slightest blush creeping onto her cheeks. Her place in the lower class is no well-kept secret at this point. "And I don't work here, I was here for an interview." It isn't a lie, technically.

"Personal assistant for Combeferre?" he asks her, and she nods in reply with a raised eyebrow. "How was it?"

"I.." she trails off, before sighing. "I didn't go."

He frowns. "Why?"

"There are 10 other much more qualified people sitting in the room," she mutters. It must be ridiculous—she's standing in the lobby, coffee dripping off the fabric of her cheap clothing, explaining to a man why she bailed out of an interview like a scared little child.

"So?"

"So it doesn't matter that I'd do anything to be in this field, or that I've been following his cases religiously, or that he improved the child care system for my younger brothers and their friends." She replies dejectedly. "I don't know anyone. I don't have an in, and god, that's what this damn field is all about."

He chuckles, and she glares in response. "You're exactly who Combeferre needs," he states, a fine layer of amusement draped over his tone. "Get yourself cleaned up for an interview tomorrow."

"What?" she breathes out, confused.

"Enjolras," he extends his hand. "Of Lamarque, Enjolras & Combeferre."

Her mouth parts in reaction, a few silent seconds passing until she finally realizes she must respond in some manner. "Eponine Thenardier."

**Two. You're my crutch when my legs start moving,**

Of course, he is correct. No one is more suited to be Combeferre's personal assistant than Eponine.

It has been two months since the interview, and she has already configured a schedule exactly to Combeferre's personal preferences. It isn't difficult, he admits—the rational Combeferre adheres to a predictable set of habits. He likes two creams in his coffee, and his appointments come thirty minutes after he mulls over the morning news.

Eponine is perceptive—she remembers more than names on case files. She recalls faces, details; she reminds Combeferre of small, yet crucial details without a single prompt. She knows the people Combeferre is dealing with—she's familiar with family names, the businesses they own, the easiest ways to get them to talk.

Combeferre asks her to speak to a client; he feels she would be much more effective in conveying the message to the untrusting, guarded domestic abuse victim. She agrees—but when she looks through the glass to see a former high school classmate, she immediately runs out of the office to seek shelter next to the water cooler.

She finds it in the mess of her emotions to be shocked at seeing Enjolras run copies through the xerox machine. "Don't you have an assistant?"

He shakes his head. "Courfeyrac, but he's got bigger, more attractive fish to fry," he shrugs, lifting the cover to retrieve his original copy. "I hate handing out tasks." She nods in understanding. "Shouldn't you be in a meeting?"

He watches her pale, as she gulps and leans against the wall. "I know her," she looks at the ground. "She won't want to talk to me. I'll ruin the case."

He frowns, reaching for the stapler. "You're scared?"

"No," she refutes.

"Why?"

"I'm not!" she replies defensively.

"You shouldn't be," he states calmly. "Combeferre made the right decision."

"You don't understand," she growls. "I deserved it as much as she did. I could've been her. I grew up with her. I know her father. I swapped my damn lunches with her."

"Then you can save her," he replies with the utmost confidence.

A week passes, and Combeferre knocks on the door to Enjolras' cluttered office. "I want to thank you," he begins sincerely, as his firm partner looks up from his paperwork. "For suggesting Eponine. I wouldn't have found her without you."

Enjolras nods in recognition.

**Three. You're my head start, you're my rugged heart,**

"Courfeyrac," he warns his friend sternly. "You're not ruining the workplace dynamic."

His friend chuckles. "You never cared before," he shrugs, leaning back on the seat across Enjolras' large wooden desk as he tosses an apple into the air. "But you do because it's Eponine."

He frowns. "I don't know what you're talking about," he denies, averting contact as he reaches for the pen and begins to write.

"It's a nice look on you," Courfeyrac muses. "That soft spot."

"If you're implying that I'm treating her with favoritism—," he begins, and his friend snorts much to his irritation.

"I'm not implying shit," his assistant interrupts. "I'm saying if you don't ask her to dinner, then don't pout about it if I do."

So he does, and the rest of the men in the office groan when Courfeyrac makes his round to collect his winnings from their wallets.

"You sly asshole," Bahorel scolds the satisfied, rewarded assistant.

She's never been on a date, because surely, her drunken escapades with Montparnasse at the pub don't count. She made sure to look up the difference between the salad fork and the main fork, and where to place her napkin when she gets up to go the "ladies room" (she rolls her eyes at the term).

She smooths out the wrinkles on her much-too-plain blue dress, and the hostess looks at her impatiently—even her own attire outdoes Eponine's feeble attempt . "I'm here to meet Mr…" she trails when she sees him past the podium.

No, she can't. She turns around quickly, before realizing he has seen her too.

It's just her luck that Marius Pontmercy—Marius fucking Pontmercy from Comparative Jurisprudence class—strides in with his girlfriend Cosette, giggling as she places her hand on his inner arm. "Eponine!" he exclaims excitedly. "What are you doing here?"

"I…" she trails off again as she looks down at her plain heels and self-pedicured toes. She can feel the hostess' eyes burning holes into the back of her skull.

"Mr. Pontmercy, your table's ready—," she begins to interrupt the interaction.

"Eponine," Enjolras' clear voice cuts through the conversation. "Pontmercy," he nods.

"You two know each other?" Eponine and Marius say in unison, and the trio falls into a nod.

"Enjolras," Marius chuckles. "Who'd have thought, the two of you." He continues onto his reserved table.

"Mr. Enjolras," the hostess cuts in. "Has your date arrived yet?"

Before Eponine can even blush, Enjolras turns around to address the woman. "I don't think I'll be dining here tonight, thank you ma'am," he replies, failing to keep slight irritation out of his tone.

They make their way down to a casual burger bar a few blocks down, after she repeatedly reassures him that she is perfectly fine with putting her shoes through the uneven cobblestone. "You didn't have to," she says meekly at his sudden change of plans.

He shrugs. "It wasn't my thing. Another one of Courfeyrac's bad ideas."

She laughs, taking a sip of the familiar, comforting taste of Diet Coke.

**Four. You're the pulse that I've always needed,**

She knew it was a long time coming, but when the day finally rolls around, she wraps herself in the comforter refusing to even dismiss her phone's alarm clock.

It had been eight months—eight months of a comfortable shared residence, of weekly chinese takeout and remote control disputes. She has a distinct shelf in the shower, and he knows when to step over her abandoned shoes by the doorway. Their kitchen walls witness multiple shouting matches, their couch experiencing most of the reconciliation sessions.

"Eponine," he nudges her hidden figure, in the process of putting a clean shirt on. "Eponine, we're going to miss our flight."

"I'm sick, I can't go," her voice is muffled into the pillow.

He tugs on the comforter. "Eponine," he groans. "I know you're scared."

She quickly pulls the covers from her head. "Am not!" she argues, and he crosses his arms and looks at her skeptically. He fights the amused smile forming on the corners of his lips at her childish attempt at an argument.

"You have to meet them sometime," he takes a seat beside her on the bed.

"I don't think introducing myself as your live-in girlfriend and firm partner's assistant sounds that glamorous," she replies, staring at the ceiling in pessimism.

"Oh, that's unfortunate, glamour was what I was aiming for," he rolls his eyes, placing his lips upon her forehead. "Well, you're the one, so you're gonna have to bear it."

"How romantic," she scoffs, burying her face into his shoulder.

**Five. Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating,**

It doesn't matter that his mother simply cannot get on with Eponine; she rejects an invitation to the salon, because she does not need to be reminded by an overpaid professional about her split ends.

It's nice that his father warms up to her though; they share a shrewdness, and they have enough opinions to fuel the dinner conversation.

In the quaint church, it's only about the two of them.

She stares down the concept of finality in her simple wedding dress, and she has to take a seat before her knees give in from underneath her.

When the music plays and she is absent, he does not hesitate to exit the church despite his mother's condescending "I told you so's."

He eventually finds her, wandering through her old neighborhood as she stares at a rundown complex down the street. "I should be there," she laughs humorlessly.

"No, you shouldn't," he shakes his head.

She does not even bother to refute.

"Stop. Stop thinking you don't deserve any of this, because my god, Eponine, there is no one who deserves it more," he tells her, the message pouring out of the warmth of his fingertips as he takes her hand. "For someone who works with crime and danger and violence, you need to stop being so damn terrified of a good thing."

"I shouldn't have a good thing," she replies, frustrated. "We're getting _married_, Enjolras. And it's been all you—my career, us, that's all your doing. You deserve all of it, but not me. You shouldn't get _me_ in the end."

"It's not just some trade-off for a damn prize at the carnival, Eponine. I want you to be happy," he replies. "And if you're the terrible person you say you are, then fine. Go. But if you'd do the same for me, if I haven't been wrong about you this whole time, then _marry_ me."

She thinks about leaving, if only to prove him wrong and herself right. But no one would win, because he's right. She _would_ do the same for him.

**Six. I'll love you long after you're gone,**

She's happy because she's had a good thing. Even among the broken glass of the battered car, she doesn't think about how she _deserves_ to die. She thinks about the good things, and that's all his fault—and she wants to tell him that and interrupt his tears as he cradles her fragile body.

They have a two year-old son waiting at home with the babysitter, and she's glad because it means Enjolras won't be alone. Maybe she didn't notice it before, but as much as she needed him, he needed her too.

"You're scared," she breathes out through the blood seeping out of her mouth.

"I'm not," he shakes his head as tears continue to roll down his cheek.

"You shouldn't be," she smiles painfully, before managing one last laugh. "You're exactly who I needed."


End file.
